“So, what do you do?”
It takes me a moment to let the question sink in.
“I’m a writer,” I answer, the words sticking to the bridge of my mouth. I drop my gaze and lift it again, awaiting the dreaded “Oh, so what have you published?” inevitable follow-up.
I’ve been a reader and a writer for as long as I can remember. Growing up in the industrial, fast-paced, greedy, business-oriented, culture-lacking Monterrey, Mexico of the 1980s, I weirded people out because I liked to read. And in English of all things!
Energetic and restless by nature, my mom says that to take a minute when I was a toddler, she would leave me in a playpen with picture books. I couldn’t stay still for anything except books. “Elisa lee,” Mom used to say. Elisa reads— maybe unknowingly conditioning me for life. According to official sites, Mexicans read about 2.9 books a year… in 2024. Forty years ago, I’m sure it was close to -1.
I wrote my first “book” when I was twelve. I used a small school notebook and created one of those “choose your adventure” stories I loved. If you chose the path to the right at the fork in the woods, it would take you to your death, the left to treasure. I numbered each page and even drew illustrations. I only have a few mementos from childhood, but I have that jewel.
Then, it was short stories inspired by the ones I read religiously on the final pages of Seventeen magazine. I dreamed of getting published, but was heartbroken to learn that, as an International, I couldn’t submit my work.
I wrote and produced my first musical with a bunch of friends when I was 16. The second and third were when I was 17 and 18. After that, I worked in the local newspaper for thirteen years.
When my then-boyfriend of seven years asked me to marry him, I thought I’d buried the dream of ever getting a Creative Writing Masters degree. Never would I have imagined that I’d graduate from Harvard Extension School two decades later.
For years, when people asked, “What do you do?” I’d reach for the safe answer: “I’m a journalist. I’m a teacher. I’m a college essays advisor.” When all the time, I should have been answering, “I’m a writer.” I’m a writer when I publish and edit articles. I’m a writer when I enter writing contests. I’m a writer when my short stories get published in magazines. I’m a writer working on her first novel.
To everyone reading this article, lower your shoulders, raise your chin, and answer, “Wait and see,” when someone asks about publications. We don’t need our names in a byline to be writers.
I’m a writer because it sparks joy in my life—everything else is an afterthought.
She worked as a journalist for Grupo Reforma in her hometown of Monterrey, Mexico and taught high school Spanish and Journalism.
Empowering a new generation of writers is her life purpose, as well as publishing her YA novel Synchronicity, which she originally wrote as a play when she was 17. She also finished a two-POV, two-author dystopian YA and other projects. Her work has been published in Lucky Jefferson magazine.
- Revising overused words - March 21, 2025
- So, what do you do? - December 20, 2024
- Surviving Feedback - July 11, 2024
Sign up to our newsletter to receive new articles and events.
